Grow and lead for all of us

Leadership development

The secret link between leading and parenting

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Leading and parenting require dramatically different skills, styles, and approaches. That’s why I cringe when, after I’ve shown a leader how to hold an effective conversation with his peers, he says, “I could really use this with my kids.”

Yikes!

It would be one thing if the kids were 25 or 30 years old, but typically little Susie is 7 and Brett is a junior in high school. These kids are at different development stages from Tom who runs the district sales team and Jennifer who heads up finance. What you say to Tom or Jennifer won’t work with Susie and Brett. In fact, what works with Susie won’t work with Brett.

When it comes to conversational skills—how we talk with one another—it’s helpful to speak to adults as adults and to kids based on their developmental stages and the nourishments they need at that stage. [Read more…] about The secret link between leading and parenting

More deliberate practice for managers, not less

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Professor Phil Rosenzweig of IMD thinks that deliberate practice—using feedback and correction to improve skills—can can help executives perform better. I couldn’t agree more.

However, he cautions against applying the laws of deliberate practice too widely. “We do ourselves a disservice,” he writes at strategy-business.com, “by implying that we can practice our way to success in all circumstances.”

I beg to differ.

The reality I see in organizations today is not too much deliberate practice, but too little. How many managers do you know who spend excessive amounts of time practicing new skills, asking others for feedback, and reflecting on how to improve? How many are applying the laws of deliberate practice to situations that don’t call for them and therefore producing negative business results?

These problems don’t exist in any of the organizations where I’ve spent time over the past twenty years. In these organizations, managers spend 99 percent of their time in performance mode. Intentionally practicing managerial skills, reflecting, and getting feedback  are, at best, afterthoughts. [Read more…] about More deliberate practice for managers, not less

Why do books about talent ignore management?

Why do books about talent ignore management?

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outliersThere is a big gap in the recent literature about developing talent through conscious practice: minimal attention on leadership or managerial skills. For example, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers describes how the Beatles and Bill Gates became extraordinary at their technical crafts by practicing repeatedly over time. The book popularized the 10,000 hour rule named by psychologist Anders Ericsson. Similarly, Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code and Geoff Colvin’s Talent Is Overrated reveal the rules of deep practice and deliberate practice, respectively, mostly through the examples of athletes, musicians, and teachers. On an individual level, they talk about breaking skills into chunks, practicing the chunks slowly, and correcting mistakes along the way. On an organizational or cultural level, they talk about apprenticing young people to masters and igniting talent hotbeds that inspire them to commit to long-term deliberate practices.

This is exciting and powerful stuff. Unfortunately, none of these books talk in depth about how to apply deliberate talent practice to management or leadership. OK, I lied: the Epilogue to The Talent Code contains two pages on business, specifically Toyota’s use of kaizen events to continuously improve processes and create high quality products. But, other than this, there is very little about the skills of management. Why the gap? [Read more…] about Why do books about talent ignore management?

Real Time Feedback for Busy Leaders [February 2012]

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Warning: this issue contains ideas that may be hazardous to your leadership blind spots.

According to leadership research, 70 percent of what we learn comes from on-the-job experience. People who elevate their leadership capacity do so by taking on challenging assignments that teach them the lessons they need to learn to guide their organizations into the future. And they learn–really learn–from those experiences.

How an individual best learns depends on many factors, but one practice that works well across the board is receiving specific, requested, ongoing and real-time feedback from a rich variety of competent observers. Such feedback allows leaders to see things they cannot see on their own, expand their perspective, gauge their progress in better leveraging their strengths and improving on their “Achilles Heel” weakness, and enroll others as allies. Let’s break these words down: [Read more…] about Real Time Feedback for Busy Leaders [February 2012]

What are you practicing today? [September 2011]

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What’s the one thing you can do today…and tomorrow…and the day after that…to be a better leader?

There may be no more important question to ask.

And it’s not as simple as it sounds. I’m asking you to identify the one action that, if practiced every day, will have the largest impact on your capacity to make a positive difference in the world through people. Yes, we’re talking about leverage, and of a very particular kind: leverage through practice.

We don’t talk a lot about practice in organizations. Sure, we use the term “best practices,” but not in the same sense as we practice sports or the performing arts. So let me define the word “practice”–more specifically, deliberate practice–with some help from Geoff Colvin, author of Talent is Overrated. A deliberate practice is one with the following attributes: [Read more…] about What are you practicing today? [September 2011]

Brutal Facts + Positive Emotion: The Leadership This Moment Calls For [October 2008]

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Lately, I’ve been wondering what kind of leadership this moment in history is calling for. It’s an obvious question for an executive coach to ask, yet not necessarily easy to stick with. So many other questions distract the mind: what’s happening in the stock market today? Will the bailout do any good? What’s going to happen in the next Presidential debate? Should I keep all my cash under the pillow or diversify by burying some in the backyard? Why is my little toe purple? (Answer: stubbed it).

Another distraction is to talk about what type of leadership we don’t need. This is an easy conversation to fall into. Give me even one friendly ear, and I can carry on for five or six hours about Dick Cheney, the damage he’s caused, and my sense that he will end up as one of history’s great villains. I could also tell you why, even today, we underestimate him at our own peril.

But is solving the problem of Dick Cheney–or any other leader you or I don’t like–by itself going to make a better world? Probably not. In my case, I would be able to fall asleep better at night but not necessarily have any greater impetus to get out of bed the next morning. That’s why criticizing leaders we consider dangerous (or at least lousy) is mostly a waste of time and energy. [Read more…] about Brutal Facts + Positive Emotion: The Leadership This Moment Calls For [October 2008]

Odes to Two Leaders [June 2008]

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These are not technically odes (elaborate three-part lyrical verses), nor do they correspond with individual leaders I have coached. But I so enjoy the word “ode” that I had to use it. And I feel so honored to know leaders like these that it was only natural to create such composite portraits.

Ode to the Skeptic (Who Wasn’t)
They told you to stop pushing back against decisions, to quit being the Devil’s Advocate at every meeting. They said they were tired of the doom and gloom, wanted you to lighten up, stop furrowing your brow and smile more. Most importantly, they said, it was time for you to start offering solutions rather than complaining about problems.

At first, you thought the feedback was a bunch of crap. First, if you didn’t point out all the obstacles to success, then who would–and then where would the organization be? Second, you had a word for what others called doom and gloom: realism. Finally, even if it would help the company for you to act differently, why bother trying? After all, people don’t ever really change. [Read more…] about Odes to Two Leaders [June 2008]